Injection Molded Vending Toy Machine Capsules and Cardinal Plastics - How I Love Thee

Capsules from some mini football helmets, they used to be a quarter, now you must pay 50 cents or more for one of these type premiums.

It's those things we see in everyday life that we take for granted in the wide world of plastics technology. How often have you as a child or your kids put money into a gumball style toy machine hoping to get a toy capsule that you love?

Back in my day, I spent all my money trying for a pink once of these. Buy 'em at HeyYoYo.

Pick a winner.

It's these little works of art we take for granted and overlook. I rank them in the same catergory with the plastic Easter Eggs, the little egg shaped capsules that you see with candy in them! Little plastic works of art!

These available from MeanGlean on Etsy.

Hey Kids!  Look at all the pretty colors!  A great marketing technique to get kids to have to have them!  Who cares what's in them!

I was in shock however to read, that a local company by me produces such Gumball Machine Capsules.  Imagine a real live plastics factory right down the road!

CARDINAL PLASTICS - BALTIMORE

 

  Cardinal Plastics, Inc., founded in 1989, is a full service custom injection molder of thermoplastic materials.  

Just like in the olden days of melmac factories and 1950's plastic production companies, this factory runs 24 hours to keep up with the demands of the market.  They make the same capsules I'm talking about here, to the tune of 

TWO MILLION PER WEEK!

Their products website, (Cardinal Distributing) carries vending machines, capsules and the plastic toys that go in them at wholesale prices. So it seems I can launch my own vending machine business for under $300 (that's buying a machine at $130, and filling it with toy capsules) and start making a killing off selling little toys to kids.    They are located on Erdman Avenue in Baltimore, and their contact number is 1-800-368-2062 just in case you should be doing this yourself. 

I'd love to see those capsules being made!

In the meantime, I'll stick to vintage plastics. 

Blow Molded Plastic Toys and Injection Molded Collectibles, Broken Down in Easy Language

Blow Mold Kewpies from HeyYoYo on Etsy

Introduction

Blow molding and injection molding is an altogether different monster than the molding that was used in making melamine dinnerware.  Most factories of yesteryear that molded plastics had to do several types of molding. The "Plastics Encyclopedias" were left behind to give us clues as to what these defunct companies did. In the back of each, it would list the molder and their machines, and what type of capacities they could handle.  Molding machines used to be huge, bulky, metal, and consist of cavities made of metal or steel wherein the plastics would be poured, injected, or blown in to form the item. Here we will talk about both Injection Molding and Blow Molding, and see videos from right inside the factory!


Blow Molds / Blow Molding

Halloween Blow Molds as offered by OnePreciousThing

Blow molds in the vintage life are most often remembered as the Halloween style lights, hollow kewpie dolls, and "big piggy banks."  United States Company AJ Renzi was still producing these big banks not too long ago.

A big AJ RENZI piggy bank I sold awhile back at RetroChalet.

According to Wikipedia, "Blow molding, also known as blow forming, is a manufacturing process by which hollow plastic parts are formed. In general, there are three main types of blow molding: extrusion blow molding, injection blow molding, and stretch blow molding."

Tour the Factory: Watch this cool video on Blow Molding!






Injection Molding & Injection Molded Plastic Toys

Photo: Fred Blood.  Adorable injection molded astronaut. See a ton of these way cool injection molded" MOLD-A-RAMA figures at Fred Blood's Moldaramaville Site

Adorable Cowboys and Indians offered by OopseeDaisie

I think my best memory of injection molded plastics was my cup of colored cowboys and indians, just like the ones above. (That's right, I was a tomboy.) If you must know, injection molding is a way of "squirting plastic into a cavity mold" and voila, oout comes cowboys and indians. Technically speaking, Wikipedia explains it as " Material is fed into a heated barrel, mixed, and forced into a mold cavity where it cools and hardens to the configuration of the mold cavity.1

Cake Decorations offered by RiverWest

Early on, this was a quick and easy way to mass produce items such as dimestore toys in bulk, kitchen measuring cups, travel cups and novelties, and even cake decorations.....  What I love most is thinking I've seen it all and something like this comes along. There's no doubt in my mind the black was injected into the bangle and thanks to the seller's clear photographs you can see where this happened. 

Never seen one of these as offered by FavoriteCollectibles indicates it's a rare injection molded dot Bakelite bangle.  How cool is this?  

Tour the Factory: Watch this cool video on Injection Molding!






Related Sites you Must Check out!

• Bill Hanlon did his homework on vintage toys and Injection Molded things HERE on his site.
• Mold-A-Rama machines are discussed HERE on Fred Blood's site.
• BlowMoldsRUs talks about blow molded vintage toys and AJ Renzi!